


Long Is the Night

by theorchardofbones



Series: From Darkness to Light [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, M/M, Slow Burn, Spoilers, finish chapter 13 before reading this, seriously, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-13 10:19:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11183067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theorchardofbones/pseuds/theorchardofbones
Summary: Tensions are high between the three friends after Noctis's disappearance; Gladiolus finds a way to bond with Prompto.Written forPromptio Weekday 1, under the prompt 'in the dark'.





	Long Is the Night

**Author's Note:**

> I toyed with making this week all one fic since the chapters tie in together, but decided against it due to the last chapter having a mature rating. While each chapter does slowly weave this story together, they can be read independently of each other.
> 
> You can follow Prompto and Gladio's story [here](http://archiveofourown.org/series/756873).
> 
> I'm also up on tumblr, as I keep forgetting to mention! My personal is [here](https://theorchardofbones.tumblr.com), and my ffxv blog is [here](flowercrownsandchocobos.tumblr.com).

Gladiolus can see dark circles under Prompto’s eyes; they’ve been there for days now.

They’re all tired, their nerves frayed beyond reason. Every minor disagreement seems to explode into an all-out war until they storm off in opposite directions.

It’s not safe to go alone — not safe to be apart long. They wander the endless night as close to each other as they can bear, and even the rare retreats into solitude seem too great a risk.

It would be so easy to break down, to give up. To walk into the darkness and never look back.

Prompto is trying his phone again — shaking it, as though it might somehow jostle it back into working order. It’s not the phone that’s broken, it’s the signal. It was one of the first things to go.

When Prompto tries for the millionth time, dialling a number and holding the phone to his ear, the earnest little look of concentration on his face is too much for Gladiolus to stand. 

He pushes himself up from his seat and taps Ignis gently on his shoulder. 

‘Gonna stretch my legs,’ he says. ‘You need anything?’

Ignis shakes his head. It's not like he'd say it even if he did. 

‘I'll be quite all right.’

He can't go very far. The haven’s protection only extends a few meters out, but he finds the farthest point from Prompto and stops there, staring out into the night.

There are daemons out there; he can't see their shapes in the darkness, but he can hear them moving about, slinking and slithering through the grass. 

When he closes his eyes, he thinks he can pinpoint the sound of them — they're closer than he had first thought. 

He could just step outside the boundary of the haven, could bring his torch to life and hunt them down. Might even make it through a handful of them before something much bigger and much deadlier came along and took him out with one strike. 

He returns to their little fire as he always does, to the seats set out around it, to the tension that feels so _stifling_ it makes him want to scream.

Prompto has given up on the phone for the time being. That’s something, at least.

‘Perhaps we might try Hammerhead in the morning,’ Ignis suggests.

Gladiolus takes his seat; picks up the half-eaten tin of soup, gone cold now from sitting for so long.

‘Yeah. Maybe.’

He shovels a spoonful into his mouth and nearly gags on the chunks of cold vegetables. He sets the whole thing down, spoon and all, with a sigh.

There’s not much to do but turn in — no King’s Knight to while away the hours, no chatting about the wedding.

He feels that familiar lurch, the gnawing in the pit of his stomach. He knows he can’t let it take root, can’t let it _take over_ — he pushes it out away, fills his head instead with the tedium of routine. Planning the next day; planning the route to Hammerhead; planning, planning, planning.

He tidies up after their meal and for once, Prompto jumps up from his seat to help out. Together they make light work of the place and Gladiolus is almost disappointed by how quickly they breeze through the workload.

Ignis and Prompto will share the tent, while he takes the ground for his pillow. It’s not out of necessity — the tent used to comfortably fit four of them, so there’s plenty of room now for three — but being in there feels so claustrophobic, so chokingly familiar and _wrong_.

He waits until the others have retreated into the tent before spreading his bedroll out on the ground by the fire and stretching out on his back, staring up at the ceaseless blanket of black above.

As his eyes tire and begin to play tricks on him, he thinks he can pick out the stars in all their old locations, can see the silhouette of the moon in her peaceful repose.

Sleep has been coming more easily each night, he thinks, but the dreams are no less vivid. This time he finds himself defending the others from a horde of daemons breaking through the haven’s protection, but when he thinks he’s come to the end of it there are more, always more, swarming him until he collapses.

He hears mumbling when he wakes — feverish, desperate muttering, in Prompto’s voice. When he hears Noct’s name, called out softly in fear, it fills his veins with ice water.

He sits up and looks blearily about; pats the ground until he finds his phone and checks it for the time. It’s a little after midnight.

The fire has almost died down to embers, the wood crackling softly in the dwindling flames. It’s colder now, so he moves to the fire’s edge and prods at it with a stick, stirring it to life. The heat that comes off it is feeble but enough to drive some warmth back into his stiffening limbs.

A few metres away, within the confines of the tent, he hears a little cry. Ignis’s voice answers it, bleary but soothing: ‘It’s all right. You were dreaming.’

Gladiolus hears snatches of a whispered conversation between them; hears fabric rustling as clothes are hastily pulled on. A moment later Prompto emerges from the tent and Gladiolus can just make out his face in the dim light of the haven’s glow, the purple bruises ever more pronounced below his eyes.

He watches Prompto glance about, spotting Gladiolus before marching to the right and taking up a seat at the far side of the fire from him. Prompto whips out his phone, casting his face in blue as he moves thumbs deftly across the screen before lifting the handset to his ear.

Even from where Gladiolus sits, he can hear the three notes of the error tone announcing that there’s no signal, no answer, _no point_.

But still he keeps trying; keeps punching in numbers as though maybe the next one will work.

Gladiolus rises to his feet and crosses the haven, stopping at Prompto’s side. He reaches out for the phone and grasps it, and for a moment Prompto won’t let go — looks up at him, offended, and only holds on tighter.

‘Give it a rest,’ Gladiolus says. ‘We’ll hit Hammerhead tomorrow and check on everybody then.’

With a sigh, Prompto finally relinquishes his hold and Gladiolus powers the phone off, handing it back to him.

There’s another chair nearby — Ignis’s — and Gladiolus sinks into it, scooching it a little closer. Prompto watches him, warily, and doesn’t look away until Gladiolus settles back and closes his eyes, tipping his face toward the sky.

They sit there like that for maybe ten minutes, both of them silent, until Gladiolus hears a rhythmic tapping sound. When he opens his eyes he can just pick out the shape of Prompto’s hand drumming a nervous rhythm into the metal arm of his chair.

He sighs; straightens up and rests his leg across his other knee.

‘What’d you dream about?’

Prompto’s head snaps up and the drumming stops.

‘What?’ he says, as though waking from a dream. He shakes his head slightly and the movement sends his blond hair falling into his face. ‘I don’t know. Nothing, I guess. Just… little pieces of things.’

_Like Noct._

Gladiolus presses his lips together to keep the name from ringing out. He’s heard Prompto say it at night a few times already, always in the throes of some fitful dream, but in their waking hours the three of them always manage to skirt around saying it. It feels as though uttering it aloud would break some spell and send the walls crashing down; Gladiolus isn’t quite ready for that yet.

‘You think it’s still there?’ Prompto says. ‘Hammerhead?’

Another day, a lifetime ago, Gladiolus might have teased him — might have asked if the real question was whether or not Cindy was there. There’s no energy left to tease, no strength to make a game of their friends’ survival.

He thinks of Iris, as he often does, and of how he had tried to dial her number before the phone lines failed. How the network had been so congested that he couldn’t even place the call.

He sits up in his seat and twists around, trying to place north from south.

The journey through Niflheim had been perilous, but the roads there had been better maintained — outposts here and there, lights all along to guide refugees on their path. Here, it’s like they’re all alone, the last people in the world.

Maybe they are.

He spots it then: hazy lights on the horizon, beneath the churning darkness. He taps Prompto on the shoulder and stretches his arm out, pointing.

‘See those lights way over there?’ he says. ‘That’s gotta be Hammerhead.’

Prompto twists, resting his knees on his seat and straightening up to get a better look. He cranes his neck for a while, trying to pick out what Gladiolus is pointing at; when he turns back his face is pale.

‘You think they’re okay?’ he murmurs.

Gladiolus nods.

‘Positive.’

He’s not even sure he believes his own words, but as Prompto settles back into his seat, Gladiolus thinks that for the first time in weeks he sees a hint of hope written into his friend’s features.

Gladiolus doesn’t know how long they spend together, sometimes talking, sometimes in silence. Maybe if there had been a sunrise to pierce through the darkness they would have watched it together; would have taken comfort in its glow.

There is no sunrise, but in its stead they take comfort in each other’s company.

It’s not like the old days — never will be again, Gladiolus thinks — but when Prompto’s chattering turns to listless murmurs and eventually dies down, his head dropping against his shoulder in slumber, it’s close enough for Gladiolus to pretend.


End file.
